The use of Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) systems has become a standard practise among corporations that rely upon telephone networks to interface with customers. The primary operation of ACD systems is to answer customer calls and distribute such calls to attendants as the attendants become available. Such ACD systems are currently being used to control customer support lines, fast food delivery operations, airline/train reservation services and 1-800 telephone number sales operations, to name only a few implementations.
FIG. 1 is a high level block diagram illustrating a standard telephony network 20 coupled to a well-known ACD controller 22 and a plurality of remote telephone stations 24. As depicted, the ACD controller 22 is further coupled to a memory storage device 26 and a plurality of attendant telephone stations 28. The ACD controller 22, the memory storage device 26 and the attendant telephone stations 28 together can be referred to as an ACD system, the components of the ACD system typically being located together at an ACD center 30.
In well-known implementations, the ACD controller 22 is built upon a Private Branch Exchange (PBX) device with specialized software implemented to create the ACD functionality. This PBX device may be an analog device, but is more commonly a digital PBX device such as a Meridian M1 PBX produced by Nortel Networks Corporation of Brampton, Ontario, Canada. The ACD controller 22 is coupled to the telephony network 20 via a number of analog telephone lines, or optionally in a digital fashion via high speed interconnections such as T1 telephone lines.
The attendant telephone stations 28 comprise telephone handsets or headsets to communicate with customers at the remote telephone stations 24. Further, the attendants typically also have computer terminals (not shown) in order to take orders and/or information from the customers. The remote telephone stations 24, on the other hand, can be standard analog telephones coupled to the telephony network 20 directly, digital telephones coupled to the telephony network 20 via their own PBX system, or even wireless telephones coupled to wireless telephony networks.
In normal operation, the well-known ACD controller 22 answers call requests from customers at the remote telephone stations 24, determines if an attendant is available to answer the call from the customer, connects the call to the attendant if one is available and, if an attendant is not currently available, informs the customer of this fact. Informing the customer that no attendant is currently available to take the call can be done in a number of ways but commonly includes playing a recorded voice message followed by the playing of music. After informing the customer that no attendant is currently available, the ACD controller 22 next puts the answered calls in a priority order based upon the order they were answered and forwards each call to an attendant as the attendants become available.
One key advantage for a corporation using the ACD controller 22 is the flexibility that such a system provides. A corporation can schedule a set number of attendants to work during a set period of time without having to worry about the demand for their attendants exceeding the number working. The ACD controller 22 can compensate for access demand for the attendants during a particular period by answering the calls from the customers and essentially putting the call on hold until an attendant is available.
The key problem with the ACD controllers as currently designed is the waiting time that they cause on the part of the customers calling into the ACD systems. In some circumstances, a remote telephone station 24 could remain in an active telephone session with the ACD controller 22 for a long period of time before the ACD controller 22 forwards the call to one of the attendant telephone stations 28. This can result in dissatisfaction on the part of the customer as the customer must stay on the line to maintain his/her place within the priority order, essentially forcing the user to keep his/her ear glued to the telephone handset to wait for the attendant. Using handsfree operation can help, but the user must still remain within a close proximity to the remote telephone station 24. Further, this results in the customer's telephone line being left in an active state during which time the customer is prevented from receiving and initiating telephone sessions.
To productively utilize this waiting time, many well-known ACD controllers offer customers a number of options to select from prior to the call being forwarded to an attendant. In these implementations, the ACD controller 22 plays a recorded voice message to the customer, the recorded voice message providing the options to be selected from and the telephone keys that the customer must press to select each option. For example, this recorded voice message could specify that the pressing of digit “1” indicates “English service” while the pressing of digit “2” indicates “French service” Further, in another example in which the attendants organize travel arrangements, the recorded voice message could specify that the pressing of certain telephone keys indicates the customer's desire to travel to specific destination cities.
After receiving the recorded voice message from the ACD controller 22, the customer can subsequently select one of the options by pressing the corresponding telephone keys; the pressing of the telephone keys resulting in Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) signals being sent to the ACD controller 22 from the customer's remote telephone station 24. The ACD controller 22 receives these DTMF signals and proceeds to process the call taking into consideration the customers selections. This processing of the call could include sending additional recorded voice messages to the customer that provide additional options to select from, sending additional recorded voice messages to the customer that provide information corresponding to the customer's previous selection and/or sending the options selected by the customer to the attendant the call is eventually directed to. Overall, this type of interactive communication system is generally referred to as an Integrated Voice Response (IVR) system.
Despite the improvements made with the use of IVR, traditional ACD systems still require a customer to maintain a telephone connection with the ACD controller and wait for service from an attendant. Further, typical IVR systems only allow for a limited amount of information to be provided to the customer, this information being restricted to data that has previously been audibly recorded and has been set-up to be selected via the telephone keys. Other information outside the scope of the audibly recorded data cannot be provided. Yet further, the user of these IVR systems can often get confused with too many voice prompt options and/or end up going around in circles through menus while trying to locate a particular piece of information. Even further, these IVR systems can be slow for the user to navigate and get the desired information.